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Lisa Cantrell Talks About Her Novel
Lisa Cantrell is a writer from
Greensboro, North Carolina.
Last year, she won the Bram
Stoker Award for her first horror
novel. The Manse. In May
1989, horror writers and fans
gave a tribute to Stephen King at
the Stanley Hotel in Colorado,
which was the inspiration for the
movie, “The Shining.”
Lisa and I arranged to meet at
Stapleton Airport and sit together
on the chartered bus to the Stan
ley Hotel. This seemed to me a
perfect place for an interview.
The following story was
published in the August edition
in “2 AM” magazine.
By STEPHEN T, WARD
Interview with Lisa Cantrell
If Lisa Cantrell were a house,
she would be a Southern subur
ban bi-level with auburn shingles
and azure vestibules. There
would be blooming mourning
glories framed by open curtains
and a huge “welcome” doormat
on the stoop.
Lisa Cantrell looks anything
but the image you might have of
a horror writer. She’s pretty, can
did, and smiling. Her description
of The Manse, the house she
wrote about in her award-win
ning first novel of that name, is
as far removed from describing
her personality as one can get:
“The Manse looked pretty eerie
on its own, even in the broad
daylight and minus Halloween
embellishments.”
Though she is not a house that
resembles Elvira, you can be
sure that the outside light that
falls upon the windows does not
penetrate the darkness within.
Concealed behind those portals
is that wonderfully vivid im
agination that translates into hor
ror on the pages of her novels.
I met Lisa Cantrell several
months ago and became fas
cinated with her both as an
author and a person. Upon dis
covering that we were both at
tending the 1989 Horrorfest
being held at the historic Stanley
Hotel in Denver, Colorado in
May, I requested an interview
and she obligingly agreed. We
arranged to meet at the Stapleton
Airport on Friday afternoon, and
we began our conversation on
the bus ride to the hotel.
As we traveled toward Stan
ley, 1 couldn’t help thinking of
the coincidcnce. The Stanley had
been used as the Overlook Hotel
in the movie The Shining, star
ring Jack Nicholson in the lead
role of Stephen King’s best
seller. In a way this was to be a
meeting of the haunted: The
Overlook and The Manse. And
that led to my first question:
Question: You write so
believably about the unknown.
Do you believe in the super
natural?
Cantrell: Ah, I believe in the
possibility of anything. Nothing
is impossible, we just haven’t
found out about it: like all the
talk and debate as to whether
there is life elsewhere. Either
way, it’s phenomenal, whether or
not we are the elite. If we are or
are not, that would be an out
standing discovery. 1 don’t
necessarily believe in flying
saucers ... I would have to see for
myself to believe. That’s how
easy I feel about the super
natural. I know there are a lot of
people who do believe in it. I’ve
never had any experience that
would make me believe that
ghosts exist, or that the creatures
we write about are real. But, who
knows?
Question; Your writing
turns fear into almost living
thing that envelopes the
characters. What is the heart
of the fear?
Cantrell: Trying to do some
thing that would move me emo
tionally, and yet trying not to be
so specific that it wouldn’t move
somebody else emotionally. For
my fears may not necessarily be
your fear. 1 can be scared of a
dark room in a house by myself
at night. My husband wouldn’t
be bothered by that for a minute.
But he’s scared to death of ticks
and they really don’t bother me. I
wouldn’t like one on me or
giving me Spotted Mountain
Fever, but they’re not something
I’m afraid of.
I try to play on the emotions
of the reader, yet not get too deep
into the description of what I’m
trying to scare them with. The
idea is to let the reader’s im
agination come in and supply his
own boogeyman. When I get to
the heart of fear, 1 think it has to
be what scares me. As Stephen
King says in his preface to Night
Shift, it’s the thing under the
sheet. And if we lift that sheet,
we’re afraid the face we see may
be our own. What he is ul
timately saying is, death is the
lx)ttom line. We are all afraid of
death; how it is going to happen,
or what comes after death.
Maybe death is the bottom line.
Anyway you approach it - a mil
lion ways - it’s a circle. And right
there in the center is where the
heart of fear is, the thing that
touches the majority.
Question: Is your writing
based on themes, or are there
issues in your own life that you
try to contend with through
writing?
Cantrell: I think I do use
themes, especially when it comes
to fear, I try to work out what
scares me. The first thing I think
about when writing something
scary is, would it scare me?
Would this be intimidating to me
if I were put into this simation?
So, I try to put myself as a per
son and reader in a situation that
I know would frighten me and
try to understand my emotions.
So, in a way, yes. I’m working
through what starts out im
mediately where I would sayt
“Oh, God! that would scare me
to death!” As I write about it and
explore my character’s reaction
and what happens, and maybe 1
am wofHrtg out - taking the heart
of fear - and dissecting it. And
maybe it’s not quite so intimidat
ing anymore to me. Afterwards,
I’m able to say, that’s really not
so bad.
Question: Even though it’l
real bad for the character...
Cantrell: Uh-huh, right And
I’ve noticed ’m a confirmed
Friday-cat-cat in the dark. I don’t
like the dark by myself, that’s for
sure. But now I tad myself in
stead of reacting on an emotional
level to it at times. When I wake
sometimes, thinking I heard
something. I’m thinking, “How
can I use this in a scene of a fu
ture book?” Then it sort of
snowballs on me. “What if it’s a
nine-foet hairy monster?” Then
it starts getting funny. You start
playing games with yourself. So,
I think I’ve leamed to dissect the
actual first gut-reaction, which is
to be afraid, and make it less in
timidating for me. I think it’s
helped me in that way.
In The Manse, I started with
the basis that many people
believe a house could be
haunted. I don’t happen to be
one of them, because as I said.
I’m a show-me-first type of
person.
Question: Which was
probably why The Manae was
so terrifying. You place your
self in 'Ilie Manse with your
ovm skepticism and rationality,
then do w'hat it takes to con
vince yourself that the horror
is real.
Question: Which was
probably why The Manse was
so terrifying. You place your
self in The Manse with your
own skepticism and rationality,
then do what it takes to con
vince yourself that the horror
is real.
Cantrell: Right. Exactiy. It’s a
diffetient-approach to the heart of
fear. Of course, there are certain
things I stay clear of in writing.
Things that there is no way to
take apart, such as a
psychopathic killer, a person that
could be after you with a knife
and torture you for hours. And
the drug-crazed brutes. I don’t
enjoy reading about things like
that, or the possibility that it
COULD happen. 1 don’t really
>*/’■
%
think a vampire is going to attack
me at midnight in the basement
of my house. But yes, someone
could follow me in a parking lot
one night; somebody could lay in
wait with a knife. So that’s fear
stuff that doesn’t go away
regardless of how you disseft it.
It’s still there because it could
really happen.
Question: Like the death of
Gage in King’s Pet Semetary?
Cantrell: Yes. That’s some
thing that would touch anybody
at a certain level. In The Manse,
I have the death of a child, a
bunch at the end of the book, and
people you have leamed to care
about. That makes for an almost
personal experience that allows
you to feel as if it were your own
son or daughter. To reach the
readers emotionally, you must
make them care about the
character. You must do some
thing bad to a character as a
LISA CANTRELL
writer - you have to sometimes
because these aren’t fairy tales.
They are in a way, but bad things
do happen to people. If you can
make the readers care about the
character and then you do some
thing to make them feel the
emodons that the remaining
characters in the book might feel,
then you’ve touched them.
If you kill somebody’s wife or
child in the book and you have
succeeded in making us, the
readers, care enough about the
husband or father, then we share
in his grief. We understand. We
put ourselves in his place and
then it touches us more than in
an abstract way. Not only do we
experience death, but we feel the
grief of the one that is left. So
you have both sides; you see the
bad thing happen to a character
that you cared about, then you
feel the grief of the other. That’s
the double whammy.
Lisa suddenly grew quiet; we
had arrived at tlie Stanley Hotel.
1 studied her closely after she
stepped off the bus. She gazed
upon the white hotel; its while
contrast witlii the dark, blue rock-
ies rellectcd in her e>'5S - it was
shining.
It dawned on me that the Stan
ley to Lisa was the embodiment
of the Bram Stoker Award she
won for her novel The Manse. I
thought of the Overtook Hotel in
The Shining and then of The
Manse. It came to me that this
was indeed a meeting of the
haunted.
Two houses made a neighbor
hood; and on this weekend in
May, the residents (horror
writers) had come home.
Note: Lisa Cantrell’s second
novel. The Ridge, is scheduled
to be published this fail. She is
currently writing a sequel to The
Manse.
Historical Sketch Of Fayetteville State University
By DR. IZOLA YOUNG
In 1867, only two years after
the end of the Civil War and the
ftieeing of the slaves, black
citizens in Fayetteville saw fit to
create a school for their children.
Together they raised the tidy sum
of $134 for two lots on Gillespie
Street (near the Market House)
and named the proposed school
the “Howard School.” honoring
the popular Civil War General
0.0. Howard, head of the
Freedman’s Bureau. (Howard
University in Washington, D.C.,
is also named for General
Howard.) At the same time that
they purchased the land and
named the school, the same
citizens appointed seven black
men to a board of trustees and
instructed them to maintain the
property, permanently, as a site
for the education of the black
children of Fayetteville. The men
were Matthew N. Leary, A.J.
ChesnutL Robert Simmons,
George Grainger, Thomas
Lomax, Nelson Carter, and
David A. Bryant.
While all the appointed
trustees were prominent
citizens—^businessmen and mini
sters—two of them became
fathers of famous men. Matthew
Leary was the father of Lewis
Leary, the black rebel who rode
with John Brown to Harper’s
Ferry in that famous effort to use
guns to overthrow slavery.
H.L. COOK DINING HALL
Young Leary’s widow, Mary Pat
terson Leary Langston, also from
Fayetteville, was later to become
the grandmother of Langston
Hughes, a well known writer.
Trustee A.J. Chesnutt was the
father of Charles W. Chesnutt,
another writer. Young Chesnutt
attended the Howard School as a
student, and later he became a
teacher and finally its second
principal. In 1883, Principal
Chesnutt moved from Fayet
teville to Qeveland, Ohio, and
went on to write five novels,
numerous short stories and es
says, many set in Fayetteville
and/or the general Cape Fear
region.
At the beginning, the Howard
School, of course, was not a
university at all. Students at
many different levels of
academic achievement were en
rolled from elementary through
various secondary levels. The
school building itself was an im
pressive square-frame structure
with two floors. Acadcmically
lower-level students were taught
on the first floor while the
higher-level students were taught
on the “high” or second floor.
Even with its beginning centered
on general education rather than
university education, the school
thrived, and many people noticed
how the Howard School
provided a high level of educa
tion for black citizens. In fact, in
1877, when the state of North
Carolina decided to assist in the
training of black teachers,
officials chose to create a black
nornial school by giving $2,000
to support the already established
Howard School. With this sup
port, the private Howard School
became state supported and con
sequently the school was
renamed the State Colored Nor
mal School. With this change,
what is now Fayetteville State
Universit)' became the first
teachcr training institution in the
state and in the South.
In 1908, the State Colored
Normal School (Fayetteville
State University) was moved to
its current site on Murchison
Road. With the help from several
other citizens, the third principal.
Dr. E.E. Smith, acquired “two
acres of woods, a good six room
house and a large apple tree and
pear orchard,” and erected the
first permanent buildings since
the original Howard School.
(The Murchison Road area was
considered rural and not a part of
the city of Fayetteville.) E.E.
Smith’s house, built in 1923-24,
still stands. It is a two-story
white frame building on a hiU
facing Murchison Road, across
from Seabrook Auditorium. The
old Smith home now serves as a
Guest House and dining room.
On July 1, 1972, by legislative
act, Fayetteville State University
became a constituent institution
of the University of North
Carolina. No longer a one build
ing, teachcr training institution,
the growth of tlie university
reflects the noble ideas of the
hard-working citizeas who found
it. Serving more than 3,024 men
and women from various races
and ethnic groups, the campus
now consists of 36 buildings on
156 acres and tlie University cur
rently offeni 11 programs of
study leading to tlie bac
calaureate degree in 24 dis
ciplines. Graduate programs are
offered in 6 disciplines in Educa
tion and 1 in Business. Willi
these programs, the University
has fully embraced tlie s;une
educational aims which Principal
Charles W. Chesnutt wrote about
in his journal in 1880:
“We” wi.sh to iaspire the
young men “and women” with
ambition-- honorable ambition,
and earnest desire for usefulness
and “we” would point to them
the heights of knowledge, and
tell them how to attain them; to
the temple of fame and how to
reach it. It is true they cannot all
be lawyers, doctors, divines, but
they will all be better men “and
women”, if they cherish high
aspirations.
Today’s Fayetteville State
University is nurtured by its
proud history and cherishes in
deed its high aspirations.